With the crews of Debonnaire and Carpe Diem having departed by last Friday, Dino, Catherine and Phil spent a few extra days unwinding at Airlie Beach. Apart from some minor boat and sail repairs to organise, and some maintenance we did ourselves, we had plenty of time to relax and explore our home-away-from-home.
We wandered around town and checked out some shops and restaurants. It was bustling with tourists, particularly with young back-packers from all around the world. The main street through town is nicely developed, probably updated in recent years. Despite Cyclone Debbie, most businesses seemed to be operational again. There must have been a huge effort to quickly clean up the debris. There’s a lot of work underway to repair the damage and I’m sure that before long Airlie Beach will be back to normal. Even the trees that were stripped of their leaves are already bursting back with new growth.
We have been on a couple of short cruises. On Saturday afternoon, we headed over to the Whitsunday Islands and visited Nara Inlet. This is likely to be a first-night stop for cruises around the Whitsunday Islands later in the year, so this was a short reconnaissance trip. The course was quite straight-forward and took just a couple of hours. Crossing Whitsunday Passage was reasonably flat despite the 15 to 20 knot southeasterly breeze.
On Tuesday afternoon, we went “around the corner” to Funnel Bay. We set the anchor and were pleased it all went according to plan. We’ve rarely used the anchor because we mostly berth at marinas around Port Phillip. We thought that we should start getting some practice before cruising around to tranquil island getaways. Catherine also took the opportunity to have her first, long-awaited swim in the warm, tropical waters.
Dino returned to Adelaide on Sunday and Catherine and I flew back to Melbourne yesterday. We expect to be back at Airlie Beach mid-May. Until then, may The Force be with you.
Debonnaire 